Lesson 7: Rests

Reading sheet music is like reading a foreign language. There are rules and patterns that must be followed for the music to sound pleasing to the ear and so the musician can interpret the music correctly in order to perform it.

Before we get to the music, we must first know how to write it correctly, understand the notes and rhythms, and know how to organize it.

To learn about how to correctly label a note, head to: http://nomusicbflat.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-is-c4.html

To learn about clefs, head to:
http://nomusicbflat.blogspot.com/2012/12/lesson-2-staffs-clefs-and-lines-oh-my.html

To learn about the major scale,the minor scale, whole steps, and half steps, head to:
http://nomusicbflat.blogspot.com/2013/01/lesson-3-major-and-minor-scale.html

To learn about key signatures, head to:
http://nomusicbflat.blogspot.com/2013/01/lesson-4-key-signatures.html

To learn about notes and their rhythms in simple meter, head to:
http://nomusicbflat.blogspot.com/2013/01/lesson-5-notes-and-rhythm-part-i.html

To learn about simple time signatures, head to:
http://nomusicbflat.blogspot.com/2013/01/lesson-6-simple-time-signatures.html

Now we will learn about rests in simple time.

Music is not just sound. Music also includes the space between sound. Ears and minds get overwhelmed listening to, and trying to play constant sound. There is a time and place for constant sound, however rests not only allow for processing the previous musical phrase, they also provide places to show the dynamics of the music, and allow the musician to get a breath every now and then. (This is of extreme importance to wind instrumentalists in particular, who use controlled, exhaled breath to play their instruments)

Rests are also specific in their length of time. For every note, there exists a rest with an equivalent amount of time. For example, a quarter rest is equal in length to a quarter note.

Here is a chart showing the rests and their equal-length notes:

As you can tell, there are some similar characteristics between the note and their rest counterpart. The eighth note and rest both have one flag. Likewise, the sixteenth note and rest both have 2 flags. The quarter rest is commonly used, however this looks more like a squigly line. The half and whole rests are difficult to differenciate without practice. The half note is a small solid rectangle above the 3rd line of the staff and looks like a top hat (the "brim" is part of the 3rd line of the staff, showing it's relative position) The whole rest is a rectangle directly underneath the fourth line of the staff, and looks like a basket (the top of the basket is part of the fourth line of the staff, showing it's relative position.) These you will simply have to memorize which is which. The way I remembered when I was learning: you can only fit half a lunch in a hat, but you can fit a whole one in a picnic basket.

Which rests do you use then? You could use 2 eighth rests instead of one quarter rest, however there is a correct way to notate rests. Lets review: In your time signature, (we will be using 4\4 for this example), the number on top is the number of beats in a measure, and the bottom number is what note gets one beat. Here we have four beats in a measure, and the quarter note is one beat.  Say we have this:

In measure 1, we have 2 quarter notes and a half note. In measure 2 we have one quarter note, one quarter rest, and one half rest. Why not 3 quarter rests? We use as few rests as we can, but still completing each beat. In measure 3 we have 5 descending eighth notes, one eighth rest, and a quarter rest. Why not have a quarter rest then the eighth rest? The eighth rest is the other half of the lone eighth note and that beat must be completed before another beat can be notated.  In measure 4 we have 3 quarter notes and a quarter rest. This concept will be explained in more detail in a later lesson.

What would happen if a particular part rests for multiple consecutive measures? It would waste paper to notate out each measure with a full-value rest (not to mention be tedious and inaccurate to count through). Good thing there is a shortcut to notating muliple measures of consecutive rests.

This is how one would notate 15 consecutive measures of rest. No matter what time signature you are in, the number (X) displayed above the span tells you that there are X  measures of rest.

We have learned:
- what a rest is
-how to identify commonly seen rests in simple meter
-how to complete a beat with rests
-how to notate multiple measures of consecutive rest.

This concludes our lesson for today.